But the shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, said the report showed that passport checks had been downgraded more than 2,000 times after it was decided to weaken border controls.
"The government is fundamentally weakening border security and privacy for passport holders in order to get people through the lines faster," said Ari Schwartz, deputy director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, which submitted comments in opposition to the proposed rule, along with 4,000 others, the vast majority in opposition.
EU 'lying' about border protection Jump to media player The Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto says the EU is intent on weakening border protection.
His words, "weaken our borders".
It does nothing to make getting on a boat to Australia more attractive, nor does it in any way weaken our borders (if they were ever weak).
"The breakdown of state infrastructure, weakening of borders and proliferation of armed groups during the nearly three-year battle for control of Syria, has transformed the country from a stopover into a major production site," Reuters reported.
The view from our government seems to be that any step, however carefully managed, to enable people to find safe routes into the UK will weaken our borders irreparably.
Morrison chose to hold a press conference in his courtyard on Wednesday to announce the government will reopen the Christmas Island detention centre in order to deal with "what the parliament has done to weaken our borders".
It reopened the Christmas Island detention centre with some political fanfare in anticipation of more transfers, in the process contending non-government parties had weakened the border protection regime – but announced in the April budget it would close the facility.
Morrison said the Coalition would repeal the law if it won a majority in May, and said his job now was "to do everything within my power and in the power of the government to ensure that what the parliament has done to weaken our borders does not result in boats coming to Australia".
"It makes clear that controls were downgraded far more often in 2011 than in any previous year, and that the immigration minister licensed repeated weakening of border controls".
